Thursday, September 28, 2006
part iii of how many people in the world would actually think this is music?!
i just had this great conversation with ian about glitch, and i wrote some words that i like. basically, the question put to me was: 'what IS it that you people really get out of that stuff?'
before i let loose, let's do some definitions on some undefined genres. there's glitch-hop, which is bassy, a super-dance-able version of hip-hop, with scratching and glitch layered over it. and that actually covers most of what i go out to dance to. (i mean, ish. most of these genres are just trying to provide a term for something that's pretty scattered and diverse.) for glitch-hop, let's say that's boreta, eprom, kraddy, ooah, edit, with some kitty-d on the side and rodman darting in and out. and then there's *glitch*... which is also a problematic genre name, but in this case i'm talking about 'music' that is primarily scratchy beepy sounds. there may or may not be a layer of really smooth melodic sound as a base, and there will be some beats, but the focus of the thing is the straight bEEp beeErP tch skreeeeE tch cLiCK. i don't know the names of a lot of glitch producers, but slidecamp is glitchy, and so is mr projectile, and i think watson and toast. and maybe RD. DISCLAIMER: most of the boys i listed don't really think of much--if any--of what they do as 'glitch'. it's a hard term to get right, right now.
so i'm seeing two categories of people loving this music--the uber-awesome dancers and the music geekhead producers. which leads me to believe that it is awesome for dancing and probably technically pretty fun to ponder and play with.
first, the dancers. glitch is TOTALLY dance-able. even most of the really pure glitch, provided your drugs are working properly. the dancers that i dance with are pretty stoked on music that let's you get creative with your body and move slowly but intricately. so the midtempo breaks stuff that we've been so into for the last couple years is great--loooots of bass, but a slow enough tempo that you can bend over backwards and touch your elbow behind your opposite knee if you want to. now glitch-hop is taking the midtempo breaks and layering some new sharper scratchier stuff on top, right? so then you've got the sloooow bassline to match with your torso, but with this set of sounds on top that you can match with your arms or head or feet or whatever. lots of space for total movement insanity. and there's the little matter of how incredibly well it lets us all dance together... the -hop part is slow, making it easy to move with someone else, and super-sexy, which makes everyone move way hotter; and then the glitch lets folks be more playful.
dancing to the pure glitch is way different, but also fun. it's super *sharp* music, and some of it's pretty spare and sparse, which i like. it's music to test your reflexes :P how many beats can you hit, with how many body parts, in a given short timespan? also, everyone likes to be a robot sometimes :)
and then the djs. the fact that so many producers and dJs that i like are interested in glitch makes me surmise that it's probably fun to listen to from the perspective of how-the-hell-did-they-make-that. also, it must be fun to make or they wouldn't keep churning it out.
and my personal connection... i mean, it's incredible to dance to. just incredible. the first troubled youth mash-up set i heard made me tear up. not kidding. and their set at priceless was even better. i cannotobjectively determine what it is, other than the paragraphs above about dancing, that makes this music resonate with me. but it does. it REALLY does. the glitch-hop, the melodic stuff with glitch on top, the electro-glitch, and whatever else. all of it.
i've never had any genre that reeeeally did it for me before. i like and listen to a pretty broad range of genres, but i'm very artist-specific. i didn't ever get into the jamband scene, despite circumstances that suggested i should. i had a quick little ska phase, but just cuz it was a fun thing to do. i never got into any of the punk or emo or indie shit that people went through in high school or college--i just never heard a genre or subgenre that had more than a couple bands that i really loved. so this is my first time where i'm ready to just completely immerse myself in a type of music, and let myself be okay with the fact that, well, i pretty much listen only to *this* genre now when i'm in the car or cleaning or whatnot. i used to think that that sort of behavior was inCREDibly lame and narrow-minded of people, but now i'm seeing that i just hadn't found a genre that i loved the way they did.
and in response to the argument that it's getting love because it's hip and underground and edgy... yes, it's underground, and it's got the whole too-cool thing that goes with underground. but i'm going to be sweetly naive and be one of the DANCERS, and you can't fake the dancing. have you seen us? i mean, i've seen us, and we are faking NOTHING. so i'll just kick it with my dancers, and we'll go to ruby skye if it's for something that we can't get elsewhere (but if you can get it at nickie's then why in god's name would you go to ruby skye?!), and we'll be happy :)
(my post on the first non-dancing glitch show i went to, and how startled i was at how much i like it, is here:http://orangesmiling.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-many-people-in-world-would.html.)
before i let loose, let's do some definitions on some undefined genres. there's glitch-hop, which is bassy, a super-dance-able version of hip-hop, with scratching and glitch layered over it. and that actually covers most of what i go out to dance to. (i mean, ish. most of these genres are just trying to provide a term for something that's pretty scattered and diverse.) for glitch-hop, let's say that's boreta, eprom, kraddy, ooah, edit, with some kitty-d on the side and rodman darting in and out. and then there's *glitch*... which is also a problematic genre name, but in this case i'm talking about 'music' that is primarily scratchy beepy sounds. there may or may not be a layer of really smooth melodic sound as a base, and there will be some beats, but the focus of the thing is the straight bEEp beeErP tch skreeeeE tch cLiCK. i don't know the names of a lot of glitch producers, but slidecamp is glitchy, and so is mr projectile, and i think watson and toast. and maybe RD. DISCLAIMER: most of the boys i listed don't really think of much--if any--of what they do as 'glitch'. it's a hard term to get right, right now.
so i'm seeing two categories of people loving this music--the uber-awesome dancers and the music geekhead producers. which leads me to believe that it is awesome for dancing and probably technically pretty fun to ponder and play with.
first, the dancers. glitch is TOTALLY dance-able. even most of the really pure glitch, provided your drugs are working properly. the dancers that i dance with are pretty stoked on music that let's you get creative with your body and move slowly but intricately. so the midtempo breaks stuff that we've been so into for the last couple years is great--loooots of bass, but a slow enough tempo that you can bend over backwards and touch your elbow behind your opposite knee if you want to. now glitch-hop is taking the midtempo breaks and layering some new sharper scratchier stuff on top, right? so then you've got the sloooow bassline to match with your torso, but with this set of sounds on top that you can match with your arms or head or feet or whatever. lots of space for total movement insanity. and there's the little matter of how incredibly well it lets us all dance together... the -hop part is slow, making it easy to move with someone else, and super-sexy, which makes everyone move way hotter; and then the glitch lets folks be more playful.
dancing to the pure glitch is way different, but also fun. it's super *sharp* music, and some of it's pretty spare and sparse, which i like. it's music to test your reflexes :P how many beats can you hit, with how many body parts, in a given short timespan? also, everyone likes to be a robot sometimes :)
and then the djs. the fact that so many producers and dJs that i like are interested in glitch makes me surmise that it's probably fun to listen to from the perspective of how-the-hell-did-they-make-that. also, it must be fun to make or they wouldn't keep churning it out.
and my personal connection... i mean, it's incredible to dance to. just incredible. the first troubled youth mash-up set i heard made me tear up. not kidding. and their set at priceless was even better. i cannotobjectively determine what it is, other than the paragraphs above about dancing, that makes this music resonate with me. but it does. it REALLY does. the glitch-hop, the melodic stuff with glitch on top, the electro-glitch, and whatever else. all of it.
i've never had any genre that reeeeally did it for me before. i like and listen to a pretty broad range of genres, but i'm very artist-specific. i didn't ever get into the jamband scene, despite circumstances that suggested i should. i had a quick little ska phase, but just cuz it was a fun thing to do. i never got into any of the punk or emo or indie shit that people went through in high school or college--i just never heard a genre or subgenre that had more than a couple bands that i really loved. so this is my first time where i'm ready to just completely immerse myself in a type of music, and let myself be okay with the fact that, well, i pretty much listen only to *this* genre now when i'm in the car or cleaning or whatnot. i used to think that that sort of behavior was inCREDibly lame and narrow-minded of people, but now i'm seeing that i just hadn't found a genre that i loved the way they did.
and in response to the argument that it's getting love because it's hip and underground and edgy... yes, it's underground, and it's got the whole too-cool thing that goes with underground. but i'm going to be sweetly naive and be one of the DANCERS, and you can't fake the dancing. have you seen us? i mean, i've seen us, and we are faking NOTHING. so i'll just kick it with my dancers, and we'll go to ruby skye if it's for something that we can't get elsewhere (but if you can get it at nickie's then why in god's name would you go to ruby skye?!), and we'll be happy :)
(my post on the first non-dancing glitch show i went to, and how startled i was at how much i like it, is here:http://orangesmiling.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-many-people-in-world-would.html.)
# posted by orange @ 7:51 PM 
